School holiday baking day

 

 Aleks mixes gingerbread dough; Hannah models a flour facial.

I love to bake – and so do my niece Aleksandra and my young friend Hannah. It's school holiday time, so on Wednesday we could spend a whole day baking, extending the girls' baking repertoire and skills.

We started by making two different kinds of cheese scones (different cheeses, one batch with finely chopped chives and parsley and one without) for morning tea. Cheese scones are the quickest and easiest savoury baked treat there is, but there is an art to getting just the right amount to liquid to dry ingredients, handling the dough quickly and lightly, and getting it into the oven as soon as possible, which makes the difference between a tough scone and a light one.

 Olive and cheese focaccia breads for lunch, with homemade pickles.

Then we moved on to making focaccia bread (recipe below) for lunch. Again this is one of the simplest breads to make, which is easily jazzed up by adding different flavourings. We put finely chopped rosemary leaves into the whole batch of dough, split it in two to knead and rise it, then added halved black olives to one batch before baking, and a mixture of Gruyere and Parmesan cheese to the other.

Cutting gingerbread dough

After lunch it was on to the sweet stuff. We marvelled at the unlikely way in which choux pastry dough is made, but the best fun was had making gingerbread biscuits to the recipe given by Alexa Johnston in her wonderful NZ baking book Ladies, A Plate. Traditional home baking (Penguin Books, 2008). These also use an unusual (but easy) method, and make the best gingerbread biscuits I have ever tasted. Perfect – with the chocolate cream puffs – for afternoon tea in the garden.

FOCACCIA BREAD (WITH VARIATIONS)

Ingredients

2 C lukewarm water

1 t honey or sugar

4 t dried yeast

¼ C olive oil

1 t salt

5 C flour (approx) (white, wholemeal, or a mixture)

chopped fresh herbs e.g. rosemary, oregano (optional)

Method

Mix the water, honey/sugar and yeast together well, and leave to stand for 10 minutes to go frothy.

Add the oil and salt and stir them in; add enough flour to make a kneadable dough.

Add the chopped fresh herbs, if using, and mix them in.

Knead the dough for 10-15 minutes.

Leave it in an oiled bowl in a warm place to double (1 – 1 ½ hours).

Shape the dough into a long, flat loaf, and leave it on a greased baking tray for 30 minutes.

Dimple the top of dough (using finger tips or the end of a rounded wooden spoon handle), and drizzle olive oil over the loaf. Sprinkle with salt crystals if liked.

Bake at 200° C for 20-30 minutes.

Variations

Olive Focaccia - Add halved black olives to the dough before shaping it into a loaf.

Cheese Focaccia - Roll out the risen dough, put 2-3 T of grated cheese on one half, fold it over and pinch the sides together, sprinkle the top of the dimpled loaf with grated cheese.

Onion Focaccia - Roll out the risen dough, put 3-4 T of caramelised onion slices on one half, fold it over and pinch the sides together, sprinkle the top of the dimpled loaf with a few slices of caramelised onion.

Focaccia Rolls - Shape the dough into clover-leaf rolls rather than a loaf before rising for 30 minutes and baking.